NFL Winners and Losers: What is wrong with the Chicago Bears?

Lamarr Houston provided a perfect punch line, but don’t forget the entire joke that was the Chicago Bears’ performance on Sunday.

Houston had perhaps the most embarrassing moment of the season. He suffered what appears to be a serious knee injury celebrating a sack when the Bears trailed by 25 points late in the fourth quarter. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

Houston’s regretful act is fitting, because this entire 2014 Bears experiment looks regrettable. They put together a bunch of combustible personalities, overpaid an average NFL starting quarterback, whiffed on most of their attempts to fix a bad defense, and it all culminated in an awful loss to the New England Patriots. The 51-23 final didn’t even reflect how badly the Bears got blown out. They’re 3-5 after the loss.

The conversation with most NFL teams starts with the quarterback, and that’s where it begins in Chicago. Jay Cutler is on his way to missing the Pro Bowl and the playoffs for the eighth time in his nine seasons. It should have been a major red flag for the Bears that journeyman Josh McCown played much better than Cutler when Cutler was out with injury last season, but the Bears gave him a $126 million deal this past offseason anyway. Cutler has a long history of being an average NFL starting quarterback despite his tremendous physical gifts. This year he was given perhaps the best supporting cast in the NFL (Denver and Green Bay might argue otherwise) and he has still been unremarkable. Cutler did almost nothing until the Patriots led 38-7. Too often for an offense with Matt Forte, Brandon Marshall, Alshon Jeffery and Martellus Bennett, the Bears’ offense has gone long stretches without making any plays. Part of the problem is their quarterback isn’t really special, though he gets paid like he is.

That’s not the only problem. Marshall, who took himself out on a fourth-and-10 play against New England, seemed most interested after that loss in jabbing the media for overhearing last week’s locker-room blowup in which Marshall was prominently involved. According to the Chicago Tribune’s Rich Campbell, Marshall told reporters after the game, “Come on, put y’all’s ears closer to the door.” It’s an odd thing to be concerned about immediately following a loss like that. Marshall had one catch for 14 yards at the point the Patriots took a 38-7 lead.

The defense added a lot of pieces in the offseason, but something is missing there. They couldn’t handle Rob Gronkowski, who had three touchdowns. Tom Brady finished with 354 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions. Even if the offense was great (and it’s not), they aren’t going to win many games with this defense anyway.

The Bears have some talent, especially on offense. Is chemistry the problem? Focus? Is the quarterback the issue? Is coach Marc Trestman pushing the right buttons? Whatever the issues are, they’re real, and they manifested themselves all afternoon in New England.

Here are the rest of the Week 8 winners and losers:

WINNERS

Todd Bowles: Among all the NFL’s coordinators, Bowles should be the top candidate to get hired as a head coach next offseason. Heck, the Atlanta Falcons will be looking for a new head coach soon, and he’d make a great fit there. The Arizona Cardinals’ defensive boss has shown time and again that his incredibly aggressive approach works, and it’s a major reason the Cardinals are 6-1.

On the final play of Sunday’s win against the Eagles, Bowles showed he’s not scared to blitz in any situation. The Eagles were at Arizona’s 16-yard line, trailing 24-20 with one second left. And Bowles called an all-out blitz. He sent seven defenders, an incredible decision at that point in the game.

Philadelphia quarterback Nick Foles backpedaled and backpedaled and finally had to loft up a pass that Eagles receiver Jordan Matthews caught out of bounds. Almost any coach would not risk the criticism that would come with sending a blitz like that on the last play of the game. Bowles did it, and like most things he has dialed up for his defense (which has played without key pieces all season, including concussed cornerback Patrick Peterson for most of Sunday’s game), it worked. What a call.

Anthony Barr: Not too many people suffered through the Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Minnesota Vikings game on Sunday, but those who did saw a rookie linebacker make a phenomenal play to win it.

Barr, the ninth pick of this year’s draft, stripped Tampa Bay tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins of the ball on the first play of overtime, recovered the fumble and returned it 27 yards for the game-winning score, a walk-off hat trick.

Barr’s career is off to a good start, with 54 tackles and three sacks in eight games. The Vikings also got a nice contribution from their other first-round pick, quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. Bridgewater led a game-tying drive at the end of regulation. Barr finished it off with a great play in overtime. The Vikings should be pretty excited about that.

Next week’s Broncos vs. Patriots matchup: There were times in the first half of this season when it seemed like the Broncos-Patriots matchup wouldn’t be all that great. The Patriots, in particular, had their struggles early in the season. Next Sunday’s game looks really intriguing now.

The Broncos are playing at a very high level, and are clearly the best team in football at this moment. But the re-emergence of Gronkowski as one of the NFL’s best players and improvements elsewhere in the Patriots lineup, especially on the offensive line, have given the Patriots the look of a real contender. The Bears were terrible on Sunday, but the Patriots had a lot to do with that.

And that sets up another classic Peyton Manning-Tom Brady matchup next Sunday. Awesome.

Arian Foster: There were good reasons to think think Foster was entering 2014 on a career slide.

Foster, who had experienced a tremendous workload early in his Texans career, had his average yards per carry dip in 2011 and again in 2012. He played in just eight games last year due to injury. He turned 28 in August, which isn’t young for a running back, and was going to run in a one-dimensional offense with Ryan Fitzpatrick at quarterback. And he has been tremendous.

Foster was great once again on Sunday. He had 151 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns and one receiving touchdown in Houston’s 30-16 win. He has rushed for at least 100 yards in all six games he has started and finished this year. If it weren’t for Dallas’ DeMarco Murray lapping the field at running back, more people would be focusing on Foster’s incredible season.

The pigeon at the Dolphins-Jaguars game: There wasn’t much reason to attend the Dolphins-Jaguars game on Sunday, but one pigeon refused to go. First, Jaguars mascot Jaxson de Ville tried with no success to oust the bird in the third quarter …

… and the pigeon refused to be denied and was still around for the fourth quarter.

Hey, you can’t say nobody wanted to stick around to watch the Jaguars’ 27-13 loss.

LOSERS

Colts defense: They spent last week in the winner’s circle, and definitely deserve a spot here after whatever that was against Pittsburgh on Sunday.

How do you evaluate a defense that gave up 135 yards, eight first downs and zero points against the Bengals a week ago (who looked just fine in beating the Ravens this week), then give up 371 yards, 20 first downs and 35 points in the first half alone to the Steelers? Cornerback Vontae Davis was knocked out of the game with a knee injury, but that’s not the difference between giving up zero points a week ago and 51 to Pittsburgh. The Colts let Ben Roethlisberger throw for 522 yards, the fourth-most passing yards in NFL history, and six touchdowns.

I’d like to say here that this means the Colts are in trouble, or it was a one-game glitch, or anything else substantial, but when a team swings from one extreme to another like that it’s impossible for anyone to know what’s coming next.

Challengers to Norm Van Brocklin’s record: There have been numerous ways passing offense has improved and been encouraged to improve via the rules since the 1950s. Given that, one of the most incredible things in the game is that Van Brocklin’s single-game passing yardage record of 554 yards, set in 1951, has never been broken.

Warren Moon came very close once. Tony Romo made a run at it last year and fell short against the Broncos. Ben Roethlisberger was on pace for most of Sunday’s game against the Colts, but fell 32 yards short.

The Steelers should have let Roethlisberger go for the record when they got the ball back, ahead by 17 points in the final minutes (spare me any “run up the score” stuff, it’s not possible to run up the score against another professional team; that concept doesn’t exist among athletes getting paid to play for 60 minutes of football). But the Steelers ran out the clock instead. And Van Brocklin remains king.

The record will be broken eventually, but as Roethlisberger showed, it’ll take a specific set of circumstances. The Steelers won 51-34, and weren’t in a position where they had to throw much in the fourth quarter, or even wanted to pass much with Andrew Luck on the other sideline. To beat the record, a quarterback would need to get a ton of attempts and continue throwing for four quarters in a close game (in which the other team scores quickly too), and get a few big plays along the way. Until then, the Hall of Famer Van Brocklin will remain king.

Jake Long: A former first overall pick is looking at another season-ending injury and another long rehabilitation.

Long, the first pick of the 2008 NFL draft and the St. Louis Rams’ left tackle, will likely finish his fourth straight season on injured reserve after suffering what the team fears is a torn ACL, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Jim Thomas. Long tore his biceps in 2011, his triceps in 2012, and his ACL late last season and landed on injured reserve each time.

Long’s career was off to a great start, with four Pro Bowl invitations and an All-Pro nod in his first four seasons. He has had tremendously bad luck with injuries since then.

Ben Roethlisberger, punter: Roethlisberger had one of the greatest passing days in NFL history on Sunday. He also had a punt blocked, which is just about impossible for a quarterback. How does that even happen? Take a look:

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab